Long before The Hostand Dragon Wars, South Korea had its very own giant monster, Yonggary.Much like Gamera and Gorgo, Yonggary is a pretty blatant Godzilla ripoff, that tells the story of a giant reptilian creature awakened by an atomic bomb and which goes on a spree of destruction in a major urban city.In this case, Seoul gets all the kaiju love.
While it is a little retro for the time in the fact that Yonggary has no monster opponent, there is the obligatory Kenny character.Kennys are characters in 1960’s and 1970’s Japanese kaiju movies who are always annoying little Japanese school boys in short shorts.Some of them have serious emotional problems.Yonggary’s resident Kenny, is an insufferably precocious smart alec who engages Yonggary in a kind of horrible dance off.Yes, you read that right.The two get down together to some ‘60’s surf pop.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Yonggary is a big dinosaur, much like Godzilla.His claim to fame is that he has a big glowing horn on his nose.The monster suit is actually pretty awful and cheap-looking with big, glassy eyes.He also breathes fire, which looks suspiciously like a lighter being held in front of an aerosol can.
As a creature, Yonggary has a couple of notable attributes.First is the nose horn, which glows at different points in the movie for unknown reasons.Second, is Yonggary’s behavior.Interestingly, the creature is seen actively devouring oil during the course of the movie.It’s actually rare in a kaiju movie to see a monster actually eating anything (other than the occasional person).Yonggary’s need to drink oil gives him an interesting motivation and suggests an intriguing biology.
This movie also makes me appreciate the craft that went into building the miniature cities and environments in the Godzilla movies.One can really see the difference in quality between the work here and in the earlier Japanese movies.The miniatures really do go a long way to making the rest of the effects work as well as they do and selling the scale of the whole thing.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
The dance off!But only because it sucks so hard.
SEQUELS
None, but a loose remake in 1999.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
On DVD, as streaming on Netflix as of this writing.
When TV first became popular and affordable for most people, the medium was seen as a serious threat to the motion picture industry. There was a time when, if you wanted entertainment, you went to the movies. And that was it. In the 1950's, TV offered people the option of being able to consume prepackaged entertainment in their own home. Why go out to the movie theater when you could watch TV at home? Movie studios began concocting different schemes to get people out to their cinemas, by offering experiences that could not be replicated on TV, thus 3D was born as a desperate attempt to lure people to their local movie theaters. Some things never change.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon was a standout monster movie from this "Golden Age of 3D" and introduced audiences to one of the most iconic movie creatures of all time, Gill Man. The creature also spun off into two sequels, and a truly staggering amount of tie-in merchandise. Gill Man is also a junior member of that elite club known as the Universal Monsters, which is sort of a monster Rat Pack.
The movie is also notable for its extensive use of underwater photography, which was far from common in 1954. The Creature from the Black Lagoon spends a surprising amount of time underwater. Gill Man is also the forefather of the numerous fish man creatures that have appeared in movies and TV over the subsequent years, such as Abe Sapien from Hellboy and Mer-Man from the Masters of the Universe franchise.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is inspired by a legendary South American fish-man creature. The producers decided to build a horror movie around this creature set in an Amazonian research station. The science team encroaches on the Gill Man's lair and are picked off one by one. Unlike many '50's movie monsters, the creature is presented in a fairly sympathetic way and there is a definite environmental message buried in The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Like many horror movies, The Creature has a beauty and the beast theme running through it. Gill Man takes a liking to one of the scientist's girl friend. One of the most memorable and even erotic moments occurs during an extended scene in which she goes for a swim with the creature swimming below her in the murky water, apparently enjoying her silhouette.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Gill Man is realized through a couple of different rubber suits, which are actually very photogenic. When I watch this movie, the phrase "Glorious black and white" comes to mind and the suit looks really great on film. I've seen images of the creature in color and he usually looks pretty awful, with rubbery dark green skin and often bright red lips. In the movie, though, he looks great. The creature even manages to look realistic in the movie's many underwater shots, in which Gill Man's various fins and flaps move in a fluid and natural way.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
Gill Man's synchronized swim with his would-be girl friend is a great moment. The kind of of lyrical, visually poetic moment is rare in genre movies like this.
SEQUELS
Revenge of the Creature (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)
There has been a lot of talk about a remake of this movie and one is tentatively schedule for next year.
Y’all remember the magic early summer of 2010?It was a time of classic movies like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Shrek Forever After.One of those great summer of ’10 movies was Clash of the Titans, a Greek mythological opus starring Sam Worthington, who is quickly becoming the go-to guy for action genre movies.In all fairness, Clash is kind of a mess.Rumor has it, that the movie was severely meddled-with in post production and that there is a longer, better cut of the movie out there somewhere. This seems to be an ongoing problem for French director Louis LeTerrier, who's pretty-good Incredible Hulk suffered from a troubled production as well.
One thing is for sure, mythology is the new vampires!Movies like Clash of the Titans, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and the upcoming movies Thor, God of War, and The Immortals show that Hollywood is once again turning to the classic stories of gods and heroes in search of the next big hit.Mythology hasn’t been this hot for millennia.
Clash of the Titans is also a loose remake of a cheesy ‘80’s movie of the same name, although here re-imagined as a summer CGI bonanza with a cast of heavyweight actors in supporting roles.Interestingly, the movie reunites Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, who last memorably starred opposite each other in Schindler’s List and here play the divine siblings Zeus and Hades.Pete Postlethwaite and Danny Huston also have smaller parts in the movie.
Clash is loosely based on the story of Perseus, the Greek hero tasked with defeating Medusa and saving the maiden Andromeda from Poseidon’s sea monster. Like many Hollywood movies based on Greek mythology, the story takes a lot of liberties with characters and story points.Like most of these movies, Hades is made into the story’s villain and his realm is depicted as fiery and Hellish, where as it was usually depicted in mythology as sort of dark, dull and dreary.
Another annoying convention of movies set in antiquity is to cast British actors, as though people speaking ancient Greek are best represented by crisp English accents.It’s even more illogical and inconsistent in this movie because of Liam Neeson’s Irish brogue and the distractingly Australian Sam Worthington, aka Krakendile Dundee.Seriously dude, learn some more accents.Russell Crowe can do it, so can you.
This movie is also notable for two other reasons:It introduced a hilarious new catchphrase into the public lexicon, “Release the Kraken!” which is applicable for lots of different situations involving sex or pooping.Secondly, Clash of the Titans illustrated the limits of using 3D conversions as a quick cash grab to charge more for tickets.While Clash was not filmed or conceived for 3D, it was apparently given a fast and cheap conversion to the format and the movie’s 3D was widely panned.Clash of the Titans helped usher in a backlash against 3D movies that snowballed over the summer of 2010 and has gone a long way towards undoing Avatar’s hard work in showcasing the power of 3D.Ironically, Worthington starred in both movies.No doubt, James Cameron will give him a good kick in the ass when they start filming Avatar 2.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before? Was it Return of the King? Pan's Labyrinth?
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
The Greek myths were filled with cool creatures and Clash of the Titans does not stint on monsters.There are some very cool giant scorpions that grow out of the blood of a cursed warrior.There is the Medusa, which is well designed and has a unique and interesting way of moving, but suffers from very subpar CGI.There’s even a Pegasus for the ladies.The real star of the show, is the Kracken which looks a bit like a cross between the Rancor from Return of the Jedi, Orga from Godzilla 2000, and an octopus.The Kraken is a colossal kaiju-sized monster with a toothy, gaping maw and lots of horrible tentacles.This is one of the great movie monsters but sadly is not around very long before being dispatched.Every once in a while I see a monster in a movie and I’m like “That needs to fight Godzilla!”That’s how I felt when I saw the Kraken.It’s a great improvement over the silly looking monster from the original Clash of the Titans which looked like a four armed version of the creature from 20,000,000 Miles to Earth.
Speaking of movie trends, I think Krakens are coming back in.After all, we just had a Kraken not too long ago in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.Prior to that, I don’t remember seeing a lot of Krakens, except maybe the tentacle monster in Deep Rising.I would keep my eye on Krakens.I think they are going to be big.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
“Release the Kraken!!”
G'day! Name's Peh-seus.
SEQUELS
Surprisingly, considering the largely negative reactions to the movie, a sequel is planned.
HOVE VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Available on DVD and Bluray.
Kraken: Released.
TRIVIA
The movie carries the misnomer from the original.There are actually no Titans in this movie, as the term “Titan” refers to the generation of gods before Zeus and his siblings.A more accurate title would be “Clash of the Olympians.”
PITCH BLACK (2000)
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Director: David Twohy
THE MOVIE
Pitch Black owes a lot to the James Cameron movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies of the 1980’s such as Aliensand Predator.Much like the classic Schwarzenegger flicks it is a vehicle for its star, Vin Diesel, and was one of the muscled actor’s first breakout roles.It also has a hard sci-fi edge that characterized many of the action films of the ‘80’s.Creature design is handled here by the very competent Patrick Tsatopolous-who is hated by fanboys for his work on the American Godzilla movie but a decent creature designer in his own right.Pitch Black is also the start of a series of movies and multimedia projects featuring Diesel’s character Riddick and was followed with the spectacularly nerdy and self-important The Chronicles of Riddick as well as an anime movie and a well-received Xbox game, and an upcoming theatrical sequel.Pitch Black is the only entry to actually heavily feature monsters.
Pitch Black is a story of survival in which a cargo/passenger ship en route to the “Tangiers” system is struck by a meteor shower and goes down on an uninhabited desert planet. There's already a lot going on here and you can see that there is an extensive and convoluted back story, which thankfully is left for the sequel to explore. The ship is also carrying prisoner Richard Riddick and his bounty hunter captor.After the crash, Riddick escapes into the desert but the survivors have other problems to worry about in the form of carnivorous hammer-headed creatures called Bio-raptors.The good news is that the creatures are solely nocturnal and cannot survive in the light of the planet’s three suns.The bad news is that the ship crashed prior to the planet’s once-every-twenty-two-years eclipse cycle.The few remaining survivors team up with Riddick-who has a bad attitude and practically has the word “Anti-hero” tattooed across his giant pectoral muscles so you never forget: HE’S NOT A GOOD GUY-and try to escape the creatures.
At the end Riddick learns the true meaning of Christmas.
Pitch Black is a decent creature feature, with good special effects and a stylish presentation.The special lighting and filtering effects to convey the other worldliness of this tri-solar desert planet are particularly cool.Diesel is a good action hero and a worthy successor to the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers of yesteryear but he needs to learn to control his nerdy indulgences.David Twohy is a talented writer director who has a real eye for visionary and vaguely gothic sci-fi and horror.He had previously done the very cool sci-fi film The Arrival and was one of the dozens of writers to have worked on Alien 3 and Waterworld and the well-received thriller A Simple Getaway.
THE CREATURES/EFFECTS
These “Bio-raptors” are distant cousins of Giger’s Alien, but that’s okay; about a third of movie monsters from the last 30 years are as well.Patrick Tatopolous gives a unique twist to what could have been a total Alien clone, with some truly bizarre looking creatures with weird crescent-shaped heads and hammerhead protrusions on either side of their faces.The effects and design are all good if a little too slick for my tastes.
Predator 2 is the first official Predator sequel and was released only three years after the original movie.It is a very different film from its predecessor and the only real links it has to the original are the titular monster and the actor who plays him.Danny Glover plays the lead in this movie and ultimately goes mano-a-mano with the Predator.I really like the choice of casting Glover in Predator 2.First of all, he’s just a good actor and he brings a refreshing reality to the movie.He’s a regular guy who is trying to catch this extraterrestrial killer and you find yourself rooting for him. He's definitely more of an underdog than Ah-nold. Predator 2 also features a great ensemble cast that features Maria Conchita Alonso, Ruben Blades, Bill Paxton and Gary Busey.
No longer a Schwarzenegger vehicle, the movie is free to give us a little more of what we want: The Predator.To that end, it shows us a little more about the alien species and their technology. We learn that the Predator's operate under a kind of code of honor and they refuse to kill pregnant women or children.
Roger Ebert has said that Predator 2 shows us “an ugly and angry dream” and I think he’s on to something.This movie manages to combine the nihilistic ‘80’s police movie (complete with rogue cop facing off against his by-the-book superiors and car trunk full of heavy duty weapons) with the ultraviolent R-rated ‘80’s sci-fi movie.It's like Cobra meets Alien. There’s tons of violence, bare breasts, gratuitous swearing, and even Morton Downey Junior as a sleazy reporter.Although the movie was released in 1990 it is actually set in 1997 (10 years after the original) in an LA that sees crime out of control as Jamaican and Colombian drug gangs battle each other in the street.The script is like some white conservative guy’s nightmare of urban life, with gangs of foreigners taking over the streets (I kept waiting to see Tom Tancredo screaming “This is why we need to build a wall!!!”).
He's in town with a few days to kill...and to go to Disneyland.
Predator 2 is one of those movies that is fairly mediocre for the first half but makes up for it with a rockin’ last third which involves a botched government attempt to capture the alien and Glover's exciting rooftop pursuit of the creature.They ultimately crash through an apartment building and end up in the Predator ship underground.On the ship we have a famous single shot that caused many a nerdgasm back in 1990.On the ship is a trophy room with many skulls of different beasts.One skull is that of an Alien as depicted in James Cameron’s Aliens.This was cinematic proof that the Aliens and Predators existed in the same continuity and caused people to call out for an AVP movie, which didn’t happen until 2004.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
There weren’t many great design or effects strides between 1987’s Predator and its sequel.This predator looked very much like the one in the original.With the main difference being a slight elongation in the mask.At the very end, we see a group of eight or so Predators on the ship with a variety of masks and facial structures.Some of the masks resemble the more elaborate ones used in Alien vs. Predator.
One of the cool things that Predator 2 does is introduce us to some new Predator weapons and equipment such as the Smart Disc, the Net Gun, and the Spear Gun.Most of which have played a role in later movies featuring Predator characters.This movie also gives us a better look at the Predator medkit as we see the Predator treating the stump of his arm after it has been cut off in battle.
Ruben Blades, about to beat the Predator down with a rendition of Pedro Navaja.
DVD AVAILABILITY
Available in a regular or 2 disc variety.I also recently saw a big AVP mega collection at Best Buy, with deluxe versions of every Alien and Predator movie through AVP 1 and a cool diorama of an Alien and Predator duking it out.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
The whole last half hour of the movie is awesome.
Nerdgasm!!
MINORITY REPORT
Kudos for having basically all the movies heroes be either black or Latino (salsero Ruben Blades and Maria Conchita Alonso have supporting roles) which was unusual for 1990. At the same time, Jamaicans and Colombians are made into urban stereotypes (and why do so many of these Colombians speak with Mexican accents? And how can those Jamaicans even see to drive with all the smoke in that car?)I guess it all balances out.
SEQUELS
Until recently, his was the last Predator movie, although the series spun off into the Alien vs. Predator series with Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Predators was released summer of 2010.
Robocop was a milestone among the hard hitting science fiction/action movies of the 1980’s and was Dutch director Paul Verhoeven’s first hit English language movie.It has been called an action movie for liberals and is at once insanely violent and surprisingly intelligent.Like many of Verhoeven’s movies, it features a combination of action and scathing wit. Robocop is a satire on Reaganomics disguised as a bloody cop film. The movie is perhaps the best example of the director’s inhuman humanism, which attacks an exaggerated version of the existing power structure but revels in violence and nihilism at the same time.Paul Verhoeven makes comedies that are frequently mistaken for action movies, thrillers or exploitation movies.It is an orgy of over-the-top violence in the same way that his Showgirls and Basic Instinct were an orgy of ridiculous over-the-top sex.
Robocop represents a liberal nightmare of the conservative agenda, in which a powerful corporation runs rampant in a capitalistic urban nightmare where even our most important and public social service, the police, is privatized.It has aged surprisingly well in the twenty years since its release, partially because we just spent eight years under a president who was the ideological heir to Ronald Reagan.Robocop also takes a swipe at the media, which is depicted as a as a series of vapid personalities, misleading news, and idiotic commercials. Yeah, that sounds about right.
The film features one of cinema’s greatest evil corporations, Omni Consumer Products (it’s right up there with Weiland-Yutani and the Umbrella Corporation).In their attempts to take over the police department, they develop an unstable robot police officer, the enormous bipedal ED-209 and ultimately the cyborg, Robocop.Robocop was created from the remains of a police officer who was brutally murdered and he struggles with his remaining humanity throughout the movie.He is one of the great movie cyborgs, along with the Terminator, Darth Vader and The Borg.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
ED-209 is realized through the default special effect for realizing large creatures at the time, stop motion.Robocop is or course performed by a guy in a suit, nicely portrayed by actor Peter Weller.Robocop is not really an effects movie and the emphasis is more on action and satire.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
Yeah, that guy up there. He comes to a bad end.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Robocop is available in a couple of different DVD versions, including a 2 pack with The Terminator, and a collectors edition which features the original X-rated cut of the movie (for violence of course, you don't get to see Robocop's wang or anything). The movie is also available on Bluray and can usually be found pretty cheap.
SEQUELS
Followed by Robocop 2, Robocop 3, and animated and a live action TV series. Like the Planet of the Apes series, the Robocop sequels coast along on the quality and ideas of the original movie and, although not necessarily good movies, are enjoyable explorations of the Robocop universe. There is also a remake planned, which has been attached to director Darren Aronofsky.
Believe it or not, there was a time when it was not automatically assumed that a successful movie would have a string of sequels attached to it. Sure, by the 1970's there had been some successful movie series, like the James Bond movies, which themselves were based on the extensive novel and short story catalog of Ian Fleming . But with the success of the Planet of the Apes movies, producers became aware of the possibilities of creating original sequels to successful movies. The 70's saw sequels to many of the decades most iconic movies: The Godfather, part II, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, Damien: Omen II. Producers became okay with this Law of Diminishing Returns. If a movie like Rocky, for example, was a great film and a classic, it was ok for Rocky 2 to be merely a good movie, and Rocky 3 to be just okay, as long as they were profitable. So, it was only a matter of time before they sequelized the second biggest box-office hit of the decade: Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
Putting the elements together for the sequel was no easy task. Spielberg was busy with his own projects and uninterested and most of the actors from the first movie were playing hard to get. An interesting but discarded plan for the sequel was to make a prequel focusing on Robert Shaw's character, Quint, and the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. This could have been a really cool movie, as Quint was easily the most compelling character in Jaws, and his monologue about surviving the sinking, shark-infested ship was one of the highlights of the first movie. I'm sort of surprised that in a Hollywood that is now fixated on remakes and prequels of classic movies, that this movie is not somehow in development. This would be a great way to expand the Jaws series without doing an icky remake or another tired sequel.
Once the Indianapolis story was scrapped, the producers managed to lure back Roy Schieder for another outing on Amity Island, in the first of three sequels to the classic movie featuring the Brody family and their endless encounters with Great White Sharks. Jaws 2 is the best of these sequels and a decent movie in its own right, despite the absurdity of the premise of yet another shark terrorizing the town and the fact that Amity's political establishment is, yet again, unwilling to deal with the problem until its too late. This is a little unbelievable to me. The first movie's scenario-the vested economic interests of the town seek to deny or downplay the presence of the shark to avoid scarring away the vacationers-I could believe but while politicians may be slow to act, they are profoundly self-interested and rarely make the same mistake twice.
Jaws 2 also focuses more on the now-teenage son of Chief Brody and his friends, making this sequel feel a little bit like a slasher film at sea. Eventually the shark stalks this group of teens as they are stranded at sea on sailboats and the discredited and fired Brody comes to their rescue. Brody finds another improbable way to blow up a shark in the movie's finale. Jaws 2 also features probably the most famous movie tagline ever: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..."
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Bruce returns! The shark is largely the same as the one from Jaws, with the exception of the fact that it gets burned halfway through the movie. As it attacks a small boat, a woman tries to fight it off by pouring gasoline on it, which would have been badass if she had had a lighter handy. Sadly, he plan went no further but the shark still got burned when the boat exploded (For Some Reason) and Bruce sports some mean-looking scars for the rest of the movie. 'Cause the only thing scarier than a shark, is an ugly shark.
There is also a chewed up Killer Whale that washes up on the beach, a victim of the shark. I'm not sure, but I think this might be a fun reference to the 1977 Jaws ripoff, Orca. I love a good movie diss. It's like Bruce and that whale are having a rapper war. Quint's boat from the first movie was also called the Orca. That dead whale works on so many levels.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
Bruce takes down a helicopter! Okay, it is one of those floating helicopters so it is not as awesome as the scene from Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus but it is still kinda cool.
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